Swedish universities are cancelling large publishing agreement
2018-05-17Swedish universities, including Karlstad University, have decided to terminate the agreement with Elsevier, one of the world's largest scientific publishers. The reason is that the parties did not agree on open access
Elsevier is one of the world's largest scientific publishers. In 2017, Swedish universities paid approximately 120 million SEK for subscriptions to electronic journals to the publisher, of which Karlstad University accounted for almost 1.2 million SEK. In addition, researchers who wanted to publish their research and make it openly available have paid for this – in 2017 Swedish researchers paid 13 million SEK in total.
The agreement will be cancelled June 30, 2018
During the past year, negotiations have been conducted between Elsevier and the Royal Library's Bibsam consortium, which sign license agreements for electronic journals and databases for Swedish universities. Elsevier has not been able to offer an agreement with a model that corresponds to the requirements of the consortium. Therefore, the current agreement has now been terminated as of June 30, 2018.
The decision is in line with the Swedish government's goal that the result of all publicly funded research should be made openly available by 2026. A transformation from a subscription-based to an open publishing system is necessary.
Sweden stands up for open access – cancels agreement with Elsevier
(Press release from The Royal Library)
Access to articles
Researchers and students will still have access to articles published in Elsevier between January 1995 and June 30, 2018.
For articles that are older, or newer, there are alternative ways. On the Library's website "Find open access articles", you will find some tips about how to find open access articles or how to order interlibrary loans through the library.